Sjefke
has sent us an email about an interesting subject. On the Japanese website
PCWatch we can
find a preview of the Pioneer DVR-108. The authors of the article had the
possibility to test the drive (rebadged) and did some tests with it. They had
the opportunity to test the 4x DVD+R DL writing of the Pioneer DVR-108 which
decreases the waiting time from about 44 minutes to about 27 minutes.
They also had the opportunity to test the 16x DVD+R (7 min 21
secs) and 12x DVD+R (7 min 9 secs) writing functionality of the
drive and the speed increase saves you 12 valuable seconds. However what's
interesting is that the Plextor PX-712A writes a DVD+R disc at 12x in 6
minutes and 21 seconds in our latest
review.
This means that the 12x Plextor burner is a lot faster than the Pioneer at 16x. A burn at 12x saves you a minute, 100 burns almost 2 hours. Of course this can be easily explained by the use of different writing strategies. However this proves the fact that you should not go blind for the numbers. Also our preview of the BenQ DW1600A (the first 16x drive benchmark posted on the web) already showed that the differences between 12x and 16x are minimal, as this drive burned a 16x disc in 6 minutes and 14 seconds. Below a table which contains the recording speeds of several drives at 16x and 12x
The BenQ
is using the CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy, the Pioneer Z-CLV
and the Plextor P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) and it seems this
really makes a difference when it comes to fast DVD recording. Although many
users will not care to wait a minute less or more, others care about every
second saved. At least it's clear that when purchasing a DVD recorder the number
on the box does not say everything when it comes to recording speed! Discuss
this in our Recording Hardware
Forum.
Source: CDFreaks
PLUS with AnyDVD 3.9.1.1 the PX-712A is also a MUCH faster ripper 
MB
Yuck!
16x Z-CLV? Now - that sucks.
Let us hope Pioneer switch to CAV with the final firmware versions.
Hm, why is 12x faster than 16x when recording with the pioneer 108?
Better get one into my lab and find out 
Anyone remember when everyone said Plextor was nuts for releasing a 12x drive and not a 16x drive. LOL.They were still nuts on not including DL writing support in it....
Agreed OC, my loyalty to the Pioneer burners has definately drifted after the release of the A07 & A08. The competition has finally caught up! 
Is CAV harder to implement for DVD-R than for DVD+R or why on earth is Pioneer using ZCLV?
4x DL is nice though. I hope BenQ & Co fix 4x at 2.4x DL discs soon too.
Happy Birthday to you 
